Texas Stock Exchange officially operational, launches trading

Ready, set, trade.

The Texas Stock Exchange became fully operational Monday, as trading officially launched on its platform about nine months after the nascent Dallas-based exchange received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

“A modern matching engine is one of the hardest things to build in financial technology. Few have the capital to fund it and fewer still the talent to develop it — TXSE has both thanks to the record $275 million we have raised, the most ever to launch a national exchange,” the exchange said in an email. “In eighteen months, our world-class development team produced a fully integrated exchange — listings and trading in one — something no prior entrant has done.”

TXSE published this date some time ago as part of a member readiness and launch guide, and it brings the ability of member broker-dealers to execute sales of publicly listed equities using TXSE technology.

The exchange will now begin a phased roll-out of national market system symbols until all symbols are available to trade on TXSE by the end of the month. After that, the bourse will begin exchange-traded product listings in the third quarter, corporate listings in the fourth and finally initial public offerings of companies entering the market for the first time in 2027. 

Broker-dealers could begin applying for membership last year, with TXSE then taking connectivity requests in November. Dallas-based stock broker CAPIS announced it had joined TXSE as a member in March. Meanwhile, on March 31, Texas’ homegrown exchange secured its first primary listing commitment from Dallas-based investment and asset management firm Westwood Holdings Group, as the firm announced a forthcoming energy-centered exchange-traded fund, the Westwood Salient Enhanced Power & Infrastructure ETF, that will list on TXSE. 

Since TXSE announced itself in the summer of 2024, the Lone Star State capital markets field has grown much more crowded. Built to challenge the longstanding New York-based stock exchange duopoly, TXSE planted its flag on Y’all Street first with significant financial backing from the likes of Citadel Securities, BlackRock and Charles Schwab. But, starting from scratch, it faced a longer process bringing an exchange to market than the others, and the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have both since launched Texas-based listings venues that became fully operational before TXSE. 

NYSE Texas and Nasdaq Texas have spent the past year and change throwing star-studded launch events and securing high-profile dual listings, like AT&T and SpaceX, respectively. 

Now, with all three Lone Star State exchanges up and running, TXSE touts itself as, “the only national securities exchange headquartered and incorporated in Texas,” per its website. The exchange believes its technology has advantages over others owing to its ability to build its platform from the ground up, “free of the technical debt that accumulates on systems with functions layered on over decades,” TXSE said, noting that on the first day of trading, its data centers, exchange members, and regulatory interfaces all stood up as expected. 

“TXSE is the only venue outside the legacy jurisdictions built to host primary listings for corporates and ETPs, and to take companies public,” the exchange said. “Ultimately what differentiates TXSE isn’t operating one of the highest-performing exchanges in the world — that’s the price of admission — it’s our relentless focus on advocating for issuers and sponsors, and on making America’s public markets work better for everyone.”